by Martin Steyn
“Anja.” Magson raised his hands. “It’s time for the truth now.”
“It is the truth.”
“No, it’s not. There are messages on his phone that were sent by you. Photos you sent him. We can get a warrant for your phone records and see exactly when it began.”
Anja glared at him, her mouth tight, and turned her head away.
“He didn’t force you, did he?”
She was still looking the other way, but shook her head slightly.
“Why?” asked her mother. “Why would you do something like this with a man in his thirties?”
Anja snapped around. “Because he said he would take me away.”
“But he was only using you. He didn’t even give you his real name.”
“But at least I got something in return this time.”
Her mother recoiled as if she had been slapped. Her mouth hung open.
“This dress isn’t the only thing he gave me.”
“Anja ...”
“It was okay to keep quiet when your boss touched me.”
“Because it was your word against his. You know I can’t afford to lose my job. Where will I find work again? How will I take care of us?”
“Yes, well, now I’m taking care of myself. I don’t care what his name is. He’s going to take me away from this dump and I’m never coming back.”
“Teen logic, hey?” said Menck, his back against the outer wall of the conference hall. He blew a cloud of smoke into the air. “One moment she’s saying he abducted her, the next she wants him to take her away to Joburg. And she believes he’ll still do it.”
“If he ever would have,” said Magson.
“People’s lives are so messy.”
Yes.
“And it happens so quickly,” Menck continued.
Too quickly. And afterwards nothing is the same again.
The smoke was acrid in Magson’s nostrils. “The question is, where does this put Norton in terms of the murders?”
“We have him. I say we keep digging until we don’t need to ask that question anymore.”
Magson rubbed his mouth. “There are no signs of any internet relationships with the other two. Maryke would’ve written something in her diary. She wrote about a boy in her class; she wanted him to ask her out. And Dominique was happy with her boyfriend.”
“His usual MO may be to drive around in school areas, looking for a girl walking alone. Anja may be the exception. Or an evolution.”
“He was working on Anja before Maryke.”
“Grooming takes time. Maybe Anja wasn’t ready yet.”
“And where is the rope? Where is the sadism?”
“Just like my friend JR here,” Menck blew on the cigarette, making the tip glow brighter, “you can buy rope at any Pick n Pay. The entire Easter weekend lay ahead. He hadn’t even taken out the video camera yet.” Menck dropped the butt onto the ground and crushed it under his shoe. “Let’s go shake him and see if anything falls out.”
“Good news, Mr. Norton.” Magson took a seat at the table. “Anja admitted that you know each other and that she went with you of her own free will.”
“Good. So I can finally go.” He got up.
“Sit, Mr. Norton. There are a few matters that have to be resolved first.”
“Like what? You just said she was there of her own free will. And she is older than sixteen. So what is there to be resolved?”
“Do you often travel for your work?” asked Menck.
“What does that have to do with anything?”
“Nothing. But we have to wait for the paperwork and that can take a while.” Sometimes Magson wondered about the lies that slipped so easily from Menck’s lips.
“How long?” asked Norton.
Menck shrugged. “It’s a pain in the arse, really, but what can you do? You know, I can see myself in marketing.”
Norton looked at him, but said nothing.
“It’s basically about convincing people that they need a product, hey?”
Norton nodded. “If you’re really good, you can get someone to believe they have to own a product they don’t actually want.”
Menck smiled. “You can do that, hey? That’s why you’re going to be the youngest director.”
Norton smiled back. “Well.”
“So the secret to being a good marketer is being good at manipulating people.”
Norton grimaced. “‘Manipulate’ is such an ugly word.” He brushed it away with his hand. “It’s more about creating a desire, a need if you will, that previously did not exist.”
“Creating a desire that previously did not exist.”
“Are you going to see Anja again, Mr. Norton?” asked Magson.
Norton raised his chin. “Why would I want to see her again?”
“You’ve put in such a lot of effort.”
“She said she didn’t know me. She said I kidnapped her.”
“I just thought, all that time you’ve invested, all that work to get her to this point ...”
“She wanted it.”
“A desire that previously did not exist,” said Menck.
Norton’s eyes narrowed to slits, his eyebrows drawing closer together. “What are you really doing? When is the paperwork coming? When can I go?”
Menck turned to Magson. “You know, it’s almost like those other schoolgirls.”
Magson nodded slowly. “Ja. It is.”
“What ‘other schoolgirls’?” asked Norton.
Menck ignored him. “They were also walking home.”
“Ja. They were.”
“What are you talking about?”
Magson stared at the man on the other side of the table. “Mr. Norton, you said Anja told you she was in college. And you asked her to wear her school uniform, because it’s your fantasy.”
“What about it?”
“Why did you stop on the way to buy her a different dress? If she had to wear the school uniform when you picked her up, because it is your fantasy, why did she wear the new dress after you bought it?”
Norton’s mouth opened and closed again. “I ... What ‘other schoolgirls’?”
“You knew very well Anja was still in school. Your fantasy is not a school uniform. It is a schoolgirl.”
“Who are the ‘other schoolgirls’? Answer me!”
“Anja Heyns wasn’t the first schoolgirl who disappeared while she was walking home. But we weren’t so lucky to find the others. Not safely.”
“What? What are you talking about?”
Magson leaned forward, placing his elbows on the table. “I’m talking about two schoolgirls who were murdered, Mr. Norton.”
“What does that have to do with me?”
“At this point, you’re a suspect.”
“What? A suspect? You can’t be serious.”
“I am always serious when children are murdered.”
“I didn’t murder anyone! It was just sex! At the end of the weekend I would’ve taken her home.”
Magson regarded him for a moment. “I have noticed that you haven’t once used her name.”
“What?”
“Anja, Mr. Norton. Her name is Anja Heyns.”
“I want a lawyer.”
April 18, 2014. Friday.
Captain Henz Kritzinger entered the operational room. “Sorry to drag you into the office on Good Friday. I’d love to say the SAPS will make it up to you, but at least I can show my appreciation.” He upended a bag and Easter eggs spilled onto the table—red, yellow, blue and green.
Menck, sitting on one of the other tables, clapped. “Behold! The Easter Bunny has arrived!”
“And they’re halaal, Azhar, so you can just enjoy it for the marshmallow and chocolate.”
“What?” Menck hop
ped off the table. “They’re Easter eggs. How can they be halaal?”
Warrant Officer Patrick Theko picked up one of the eggs. “They’re actually called marshmallow eggs. Look.” Theko had a round face with a wide mouth that smiled effortlessly, sucking dimples into his cheeks. He unwrapped the chocolate and took a bite. “Thanks, Captain.”
Menck reached for an egg, turned it over and shook his head. “Halaal. There’s the sign and everything. What color do you want, Azhar?”
“Yellow.” Azhar Najeer caught the egg lobbed in his direction. “When I was little, my cousin told me I was hatched from an egg. He said my father brought a duck home to do it.”
Menck burst into laughter.
“He said that was why I had such a funny walk. Because the duck had taught me.” Najeer seemed to ponder the memory for a moment. “I was rather upset.” He bit into the egg.
“If Gys should hear about this ...”
Captain Kritzinger clapped his hands and rubbed his palms together. “Okay, now that everyone is on a sugar rush, let’s get to work.”
“Norton didn’t stay at the Blue Ocean Apartments earlier this year,” said Menck. “He booked using his own name and paid by credit card. They have no record of him prior to this weekend, and the receptionist said it was the first time she’s seen him.”
“So,” said Theko, “if he abducted the other girls, he didn’t take them there.”
“No.”
“The most important thing is to find out if we can tie Norton to the murders,” said Kritzinger. “Otherwise I want to know he had nothing to do with it, so we can eliminate him. Concentrate on Maryke Retief and Dominique Gould. Forget about the Romburgh girl for now and focus on Maryke—she disappeared less than two months ago and her case should be easier. We need to find out where Norton was at the end of February. It’s Easter weekend, it won’t be easy.”
At eight minutes past two Allan Norton’s name was crossed off the list of suspects. There was no way that he could have been involved in Maryke Retief’s abduction or murder—he had been in Johannesburg at the time.
As Norton had told them, it was just sex. One thing he hadn’t lied about.
Magson locked the front door, dropped the keys on the small table, walked down the short passage and around to the TV room, where he collapsed onto the sofa.
He didn’t want this case.
Neels Delport’s name remained on the list. There were a number of things that fit. Like the letter that had been posted to the Retiefs. Perhaps Delport was just intelligent. Informed. Thorough. These days everyone with a television knew about forensic evidence, thanks to the American police series. There were hundreds of books explaining everything. Not to mention the internet. The advantage had long since shifted away from the detective.
But there was a very real possibility that there was absolutely no connection between the killer and any of the girls. For all he knew, that afternoon in February had been the very first time the killer had laid eyes on Maryke Retief. Without eyewitnesses, without evidence at the scene—and they didn’t even have the primary scene—where did you search with any degree of certainty? He didn’t even know whether the letter had really come from the killer. It might just as well have been sent by a fellow pupil with a twisted sense of humor, a wannabe seeking to share in the “glory,” or a mentally disturbed individual.
This docket might simply go on and on, growing thicker and thicker without him making any progress towards solving it. Three girls murdered. That they knew of. How long before he found himself once again standing in the veld somewhere, looking down at a teenage girl being devoured by maggots? The stench in his nostrils. That wet sound, like spaghetti being stirred.
Serial murders could continue for years.
He felt trapped. Why did Maryke Retief have to come to him? Why couldn’t it have been Najeer’s case?
Easter eggs on a table. Blue and yellow and red and green.
Emma had always hidden Easter eggs in the garden for Hannes to find. They would follow him while he looked for them, saying, “Warm ... Warmer ... No, colder ... I’m actually getting goose bumps ... Your hair is starting to burn ...” And the little face when he had found one. It was so easy to make children happy when they were small, so easy to fix things when they broke.
Then they got older and all of a sudden it was impossible to fix something you had broken. You couldn’t simply go and fetch the superglue in the fridge. Even if you tried, your child couldn’t fail to see the ugly joint. Anja Heyns’s mother knew this.
If only Emma hadn’t become ill.
He rose and walked to the bookshelf against the left wall. Emma’s books. A few on birds. A few on gardening. Some on health. An atlas. The black spines of the Wêreldspektrum encyclopedias they had bought when Hannes had been in primary school. All the love stories Emma so adored. She used to read her favorites over and over again.
But you know what’s going to happen. Why don’t you rather read a new one?
She had looked at him with that soft expression of hers. Because sometimes it’s nice to know everything will end well and—
“—not simply hope it will,” he said out loud.
He smiled, and had to bite down on his lip.
The photo albums were on the bottom shelf. He pulled out the second one and returned to the sofa. Hannes’s birth. It had been the happiest day of his life. That tiny body. In his arms. Little, puffy face. Eyes closed. Tiny mouth yawning. Nine months had been insufficient to prepare him for the moment he had held his son in his arms for the first time. And even had he known every word in the Afrikaans language, he would not have been able to describe how he felt right then. On the next page Hannes was lying on his mother’s chest in the hospital bed, a white baby beanie on his head, eyes closed. And then one of his favorite photos. His hand. The fingers, somewhat short, somewhat thick. And the tiny hand. The stubby fingers holding his thumb. So small. The folds in the skin where the fingers bent. A little nail on each end. His index finger stroked the small hand on the photo.
If Emma did have to get sick, why couldn’t the treatment have worked? If only she could have gone into remission ...
When Hannes had learned to walk, to run actually, he’d had this way of jumping unexpectedly. He wouldn’t say anything or give any warning; he would simply leap, without any doubt that his father would catch him. From the bed. From the stairs at the end of the corridor in the old house. He was convinced his son had never even considered the possibility that the hands wouldn’t be there to catch him.
That was what was broken.
He had been relieved to finally get away after Emma’s funeral. To finally just get home. Away from all the people and their condolences and good intentions. He had walked into this very TV room, his hands over his face.
Mom didn’t die on her own. Never before had he heard Hannes’s voice sound like it had on that day. I didn’t want to believe it, but it is the truth. That’s why she held me like that. Why she told me how proud she was of me. How much she loved me. She said that several times.
Magson had just stood there, mute and motionless, his hands covering his face.
She knew. She knew it was the last time. That’s why it was so important that I come and visit. You planned everything for weeks.
Something had been missing from Hannes’s voice, like a photo that had faded.
How could you, Dad? You gave me a list and sent me to Tyger Valley—
Magson just stood there now, mute and motionless, his hands covering his face.
—and while I’m doing shopping, you’re killing Mom ...
Magson took his hands away. Looked at them. The hands that had done it.
I wish I had just held her. I wish I never let her go. Now it was Sonja Retief’s voice.
She had said it the first time he had spoken to her. And had repeated it in the lett
er to the newspaper. The refrain of a parent of a murdered child.
When he had turned around, that day after Emma’s funeral, his son had gone. He had had to let him go, because he no longer had the right to hold him.
He picked up the photo album off the floor and returned it to the shelf. In the bedroom he removed his holster. Turned it over in his hands.
His fingers curled around the grip and he pulled out his service pistol.
He looked down at the dull black metal.
Eight
April 22, 2014. Tuesday.
Magson sat in his office, the three dockets open in front of him. Almost all of the forensic reports had been completed—the one benefit of a high-profile case. No semen, which meant the killer had either used a condom or an object. Or he hadn’t ejaculated—perhaps he had difficulty completing the act and that was why he tortured the girls. Or maybe he withdrew in time. Similar fibers on the clothes of both Maryke and Dominique, probably originating from a shag carpet. And then the thing that bothered Magson: a single long blonde hair. It had been found on Maryke’s clothing. Whose hair was it? Was there another victim somewhere?
The clock on the wall kept on ticking. It had been a present from Hannes, when he was still at primary school, for Father’s Day.
Daddy, you can also move these black things for the date.
He looked at the sliding bars. Tuesday, April 22.
Captain Kritzinger entered the office. Magson watched the group leader shutting the door behind him and felt even more exhausted.
“Anything?”
“Nothing helpful.”
Kritzinger sat on the corner of the desk. “You magazine is doing a story. It’s about parents who can’t cope with the murders of their children, and also that the killers haven’t been caught. That they haven’t received justice.”
Magson said nothing. He wanted to close his eyes and bury his face in his hands, but instead he turned his eyes to the small cactus, still green in spite of a lack of attention, water and natural sunlight. It was even producing more thorns.
“They’re focusing on two in particular, Liesl-Marie Goosen from the late nineties and Maryke Retief. The question, of course, is whether the Retiefs will also still be waiting to see their daughter’s killer brought to justice in fifteen years’ time.”